How to Write Persona Poems As If You’re Red Riding Hood & You Know How to Skin a Wolf with Cynthia Manick

Description

In this generative workshop students will take on characters, live in their shoes, and write from his or her perspective. Donning metaphorical masks, they will explore what they don’t know and question the world around them. What are the stars doing when you can’t see them? If you were an animal, a historical figure, or member of the Supremes what would you say? Persona poems encourage writers to stretch their imaginations where they can either follow the character’s original course of action or change it into something new. And in these explorations, what does one discover about the self? Persona poems will also take on the direct address approach where poets will address a character directly. If you wrote a poem to your favorite writer or superhero describing a problem, how would they respond? We will read and discuss poems by Lucille Clifton, Patricia Smith, Carol Ann Duffy, Chris Abani, Amanda Johnston and more.

Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). A Pushcart Prize nominated poet with a MFA in Creative Writing from the New School; she has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation of the Arts among others. Winner of the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry and the 2018 Elizabeth Sloan Tyler Memorial Award; Manick is Founder and Curator of the reading series Soul Sister Revue. Her poem “Things I Carry Into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems, a organization dedicated to video poetry, and has debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month and Reel 13 Shorts. Manick’s work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Bone Bouquet, Callaloo, Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), Muzzle Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.